


Hotter Than Hellfire, Sweeter Than Wine

by IneffableAlien



Series: Proverbs 20:12 [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Affectionate Aziraphale (Good Omens), Classical Music, Cold-Blooded Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Flustered Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Pre-Scene: Body Swap (Good Omens), Romantic Fluff, Senses, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Synesthesia, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 15:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21304382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableAlien/pseuds/IneffableAlien
Summary: The night at Crowley's flat, Crowley uses classical music to tease Aziraphale's new sense of vibration—and then they break out the wine.A series about the effects of switching bodies, if human-shaped Crowley lived with snake senses.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Proverbs 20:12 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1520660
Comments: 34
Kudos: 306
Collections: Ineffable Husbands fanfiction Gap





	Hotter Than Hellfire, Sweeter Than Wine

**Author's Note:**

> I am thrilled that so many people liked this idea for a series! I promise there will be at least one more story, and it will be more explicit.
> 
> Personally, I consider this whole chapter to be foreplay, but all the nonsexual stimulation is open to interpretation. Mostly it's still cuddling :) Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I made some minor changes to dialogue so things would flow better.

“Oh!” Aziraphale yelped, kicking his feet off the floor.

He and Crowley had swapped forms, and Aziraphale was getting an accelerated education on what it was like to embody a human-shaped snake, including how it felt to sense vibrations of sound through his very bones. Crowley had deviously assaulted Aziraphale with the bass line to “Under Pressure,” and now he doubled over with hysterical laughter. “Oh, angel,” he wheezed, “you should see the look on your … well, I guess _my_ face.”

Aziraphale flailed for just a moment longer, and Crowley wiped a tear from his eye as he tuned down the music. His expression (on Aziraphale’s face) softened. “Go on,” he said, gesturing toward the floor. “Try it again, now that you know what to expect. I promise I’ll go slow.”

The angel gave Crowley an odd look when he said “I’ll go slow,” then seemed to think better of saying whatever it was that had crossed his mind. His face twitched into an apprehensive smile, and he glanced first at Crowley, to the floor, then back at Crowley. “Fine,” he huffed, infusing that one word with an impressive amount of melodrama, “make your next demonic move.”

Aziraphale planted both scale-covered feet on the floor. Crowley turned the bass as well as the volume back up, but he took his time, allowing Aziraphale to acclimate to the heavy sensation. “Oh, my,” was all Aziraphale said.

Crowley’s mischievous grin widened.

“Well, th-that’s,” Aziraphale said, “that is rather nice, I must say.”

Even the slight shift of Crowley changing his throne chair into a couch had transformed the flat into something cozier. Of course, as far as Crowley was concerned, the angel made every space around him more comfortable. Crowley’s “home” had never felt like a home, but with Aziraphale permeating the atmosphere he felt free to ease out the breath he always seemed to be holding in whenever he was there. (They didn’t need to breathe, and breathing as an exercise is typically relaxing, but Crowley always found a way to adapt any human behavior into yet another new and exciting way to be neurotic.) While Aziraphale was distracted by his own feet, Crowley surreptitiously dropped the red marble desk into something more resembling a coffee table.

He worried over if he shouldn’t have made the couch even longer. It was basically a loveseat now, and one of Crowley’s arms dangled precipitously over the back behind Aziraphale. If he made it that size on purpose, it was subconsciously.

“Yeah, it feels good,” Crowley concurred, smile infinitely fond. As the song got closer to the end, Crowley reached in the air and made a motion like turning a dial, and the music slowly faded out altogether.

Aziraphale gave him a curious look over. “Not in the mood for music tonight, my dear?”

“No, I am,” Crowley muttered. “But you’re my guest, right? I think I’ve got something …” Crowley noticed the look on Aziraphale’s face and rushed to add, “It’s fine, angel, it’ll be something I like, too.”

Hand still in the air, Crowley made a tight but smooth little flourish, such as maybe an amateur imitating a symphony conductor. “Please don’t pick up your feet,” he murmured. He sounded embarrassed. “I want you to hear this.”

Crowley was gentle, drawing the melody out slowly. The sound floated down from the speakers, the bass—although it was light—sparked from below.

Aziraphale tilted his head, not noticing that the duvet wrapped around him was slipping down his shoulders (Crowley noticed). His hearing was weaker in this body, and yet …

“Puccini?” he said wonderingly.

The way Crowley looked at Aziraphale then, so painfully tender, even though he had Aziraphale’s face—you could still see that it was all Crowley. He turned the music up before finally dropping his hand. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he said, looking away, “I guess Stravinsky would have been better, for the bass, or Tchaikovsky, but …”

“No, no,” Aziraphale chuckled, patting Crowley’s hand. “After the week that we just had, I think the last thing we need is cannon fire.” Aziraphale uncharacteristically dropped his elbows to his knees, and Crowley wondered if that was a natural effect of following vibrations, creating more planes of bone to travel, or if that was just a thing that Crowley’s body did no matter who inhabited it. “I’m just astonished by your unanticipated choosing of ‘Musetta’s Waltz,’” said Aziraphale, with a touch of reverence.

Crowley didn’t sit up or take his arm back from behind the couch, but he did squirm a little. The playful energy from before was twisted up now into something nervous, because it suddenly seemed like there were so many _feelings_ in the room. Crowley was starting to _think_ about things. “Ehh,” he said, “just thought you might like it.”

“Oh, I do,” Aziraphale said brightly. “A delightful song for this unique experience that we’re sharing.”

_“Alcohol!”_ Crowley said abruptly, much to Aziraphale’s amusement. Crowley snapped his fingers and presented two Burgundy glasses, and a Grenache from the South of France. (Aziraphale knew Crowley’s “deep, dark secrets,” so naturally he was aware that the demon had a sweet tooth sometimes when it came to picking out wines.) “Does this work for you?”

Aziraphale nodded his assent for Crowley to pour and beamed affectionately at him. “Crowley,” he said, “when have I ever forcibly rejected your spirits selections?”

Crowley made a snorting sound as he passed a full glass to Aziraphale. “In America, when _all_ I had wanted was to do a _little_ slumming—”

“Stop right there!” Aziraphale ordered, holding up his palm. “I could happily live out the rest of my immortal days without hearing the words ‘blue ribbon’ used in that context ever again, _thank you very much.”_

Crowley snickered and swirled the wine in his glass, then became solemn and held it out for a toast. “To Agnes,” he intoned, “who we can only hope saved our lives tonight.”

“To _Agnes,”_ Aziraphale agreed with a _clink._ Aziraphale put his nose inside the glass. “Huh, how odd,” he said. “This Grenache has … hardly any bouquet to it. No fruit, nothing.”

“Yes, it does,” Crowley said into his own glass. “You just didn’t taste the smell yet.”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a puzzled look, then took a tentative sip. _“Ohhh,”_ he nearly moaned.

Crowley tried not to think about that moan _(Well, I’m ruined for the rest of the night, thoughts can only go downhill from here)._ “Yup,” he said, with a pop. “That part’s pretty neat anyway, getting all the taste and the smell bundled up in one package. ‘Stead of, you know, getting a little taste from the smell, or the other way around, or whatever.”

The waltz swelled. Aziraphale flicked his tongue around the glass.

Crowley tried not to think about that tongue, and did a piss-poor job of it. (It didn’t matter if it was forked or not. What mattered was who had it.)

“An aroma of peppered spring berries that you can _see_ in living color!” Aziraphale raved theatrically. “What a transcendent eruption of all the singular senses to a palate!”

Crowley tried not to think about the word “eruption.”

For possibly the first time in many millennia, Aziraphale appeared completely devoid of stress. “Ahh, Crowley,” he sighed. “Did you ever think we’d be here?”

“Ah,” said Crowley, growing more flustered, “what, staying at the flat? It’s no trouble, I mean, I couldn’t just leave you to—”

Aziraphale set his glass on the marbled coffee table and nestled in close under Crowley’s arm that was trailing behind the couch. Instinctively, Crowley had set his glass down at almost the same time, urged on to be a mirror in that moment. Next thing, it was too natural to wrap the angel tightly alongside his body, to be terrified about it until after he had already done it.

Yes, there had been easy touching between them all night, and that was wonderful; some of it had been sweetly intimate. But this was yet another whole new level of this something, wasn’t it?

Crowley cursed his heart pounding in his chest. Why did they even have hearts? Nasty little things, always outing you to celestial forces while they were borrowing your serpentine senses, everyday stuff.

Determined to keep the conversation rolling, Crowley said, “Oh.”

Aziraphale wiggled against Crowley’s side and gazed up at him. There was no way those golden eyes had ever looked so guileless before. “Is this not all right, my dear? Gosh, being a snake and hearing your heartbeat makes it feel as though your heart was ready to burst from your body.”

“Yyeh, it’s ‘cause you’re a snake,” Crowley choked out. “No, I mean, yes, that is”—Crowley took a very real, very human sort of breath—“it’s _more_ than all right, my angel.”

“Oh, good,” Aziraphale said pleasantly, as if there were nothing unusual about any of this. Although, after the events of the previous week, maybe this was the most normal anything would ever be again: cuddling on the couch with your hereditary-enemy-but-not-really of 6,000 years while wearing each other’s bodies like people suits.

If Aziraphale noticed that Crowley had carelessly fallen into calling him _“my_ angel,” he gave no indication of it.

Aziraphale leaned into Crowley’s body and draped one arm lazily across his waist. Crowley couldn’t stop himself, both from gasping out loud, and from instantly driving his face into Aziraphale’s perfectly mussed red hair. It didn’t smell like Crowley’s hair product, he mused. Rather, it smelled like angel radiating from within, fresh as rain, cleansing as fire.

_He’s acting drunk,_ Crowley thought. _Why does he seem drunk?_ he wondered. _He barely touched the wine._

Aziraphale nuzzled Crowley’s chest like a cat and made a little whimper in his pleasure. “My dear boy … you are so gloriously _**warm** …”_

__

__

_Ohhh,_ Crowley realized.

_Ohshitohshitohshitohsh_

**Author's Note:**

> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


End file.
